


Let You Go (Still in My Memory)

by crazyinfj



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [26]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Natasha Romanov-centric, Pining, ultron to endgame timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29646651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyinfj/pseuds/crazyinfj
Summary: What if Bruce had left a message before he left Earth?And what if, all Natasha’s next actions are all to run away from the blinding truth in front of her?Febuwhump Day #28 Prompt: You have to let me go
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2135274
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Let You Go (Still in My Memory)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eylle9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eylle9/gifts).



> This was supposed to be a whump...and I suppose it kinda is…with a hopeful Brutasha ending?
> 
> And because I know our other whump fics are _pure pain_ ~~looking at you Eylle9 and _that_ fic~~, I left this one open to imagination. Does Endgame happen? Or are you sticking to fanon? Completely open guys.

“I found this in his stuff. It’s for you.” Tony leaned on Natasha’s doorframe, holding out a small Hulk figurine like a peace offering.

“He’s coming back, I don’t need that.” Natasha responded, an adage she had been using to comfort herself for a month now. 

“His room is here when he does, but Nat? I think he would want you to have this.”

“Just leave it here. I’ll look at it later.”

“It’s got a holographic message as well. Like my helmet.” Tony didn’t know what else to say, and quickly placed the glass figurine in her hands. “If you want anything...erm, I’m here.”

\--

The glass figure haunted her for another three days. Natasha couldn’t bring herself to play the video. For once, she wanted to be wrong. She wanted him to show up again, here to stay. And if the video said anything otherwise, Natasha wasn’t sure if she would survive. 

Finally, when the Compound was quiet and Natasha knew she was alone, she looked for the activation button. 

“Hey Nat.”

Bruce’s face popped up, and blue illuminated his features. He looked tired. Natasha couldn’t help but pause the hologram to pick apart the frame. 

“Where are you?”

It only took a moment for her to recognize the interior. He was in the jet, right where the team had left him when they had met the twins. That would explain why he wasn’t Hulked out. 

“I don’t have a good feeling about this.” Bruce wrung his hands together, and it was almost like Natasha could reach out to him… “The odds are against us. But they’ve been many times. I guess this time, it's different. Ultron was supposed to be a peace keeping method. A shield. I don’t know where we went wrong.” 

“I’m gonna stay. To keep the world safe. That’s my- _Hulk’s_ job. But I can’t do this. I can’t look at the destruction and not see myself.”

Natasha fought back the tears. It was like Bruce read her soul and was speaking the secrets out loud. 

“I can’t stay.”

_Yes you can, with me, I’ll keep your demons at bay._

“Look at me Nat.” Bruce looked straight at the camera, and somehow, his hologram managed to look right into her eyes. “I like you. I _wanted_ to be with you. Gosh Nat, I want a happy ending.”

“But for now, this is what we get. I hope when you’re playing this, we’ve won. I hope that the team is back together.”

“And I hope you can forgive me. This message, I never wanted it to be played. But there are forces bigger than myself, and who am I trying to convince? Natasha Romanoff, I love you, but I have to let you go.”

“And you have to let me go.” 

_You’re asking me to pull out my own heart_

\--

Bruce was right, he almost always was. Natasha had to move on. But she refused to let go. 

That refusal was good she found, when they were faced with the Accords. It was her job to hold onto them, the weird misshapen family they were. 

But of course, fights always bring out the worst parts of people, the blunt edges that everyone overlooks. Still, Natasha fought. 

“If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose.”

Natasha didn’t disagree, but she also saw the benefit with being linked to a government-it protected their asses. 

“If we keep one hand on the wheel, we can still steer.”

Tony shot her a look of gratitude and Natasha didn’t return it. To turn Steve’s mind around would be to turn the whole team’s. But Steve was a goat, stubborn and ready to fight. 

“We fight villains, not government wars.” 

“We are family, this war is better fought together. They have suits, we have strategy. ” Natasha opposed, and he seemed to consider her words.

But silently, there was only one reason she was doing this: _I can’t be left again._

\--

Natasha had been running for a long time. Maybe that’s why she had taken for granted having a family and a home. Because once again she was on the run. 

Family was a rug ripped from underneath them. Yet, they had no one to blame. They had trampled over themselves and worn the tying threads apart. 

_Bruce, are you running too?_

Maybe he was too, and maybe, that made them similar. But that, Natasha knew, was the end of the parallels. Bruce had run in fear of hurting someone, seeing the end result of his destruction, and vowing to never let it happen again. 

She was running, from what? Governments that wanted accountability? No, it wasn’t that. She was running from New York. From the memories of the team together, happy. From her memories of a lover that never happened. 

_Would Bruce be proud of what she had done?_

Natasha knew the answer already. She had changed, again, to fit into a life of retreat. In the team’s presence, she had become someone she was truly proud of. But she had shattered that mirror. Now all she saw was a million faces of her past staring back at her. 

_Bruce wouldn’t even recognize her now_

\--

“Bruce?” Steve’s voice echoed from the kitchen, and Natasha’s head whipped up. 

_Bruce was back._

”Of course, we’ll be there.” Steve promised, and Natasha held herself back from wrestling the phone from Steve. 

”It’s good to hear from you. See you soon.”

Steve hung up the flip phone, the burner one that only had one number - the one connected to the old phone Steve had given Tony. Natasha never thought she’d hear it ring, must less that it would be Bruce speaking for Tony. What had happened?

Fear shot through her veins. It had to be bad if Tony had let Bruce find the phone. 

“We need to go. There’s an invasion coming. We’re going back to the States.”

\--

“Nat.” Bruce greeted nervously, in an old MIT sweat of Rhodey’s and a green tint in his hands. 

_Even her name on his lips felt like a promise._

Maybe he was going to say something else, but it was cut off by a hologram of the latest news report. Tony Stark, missing. 

“Earth just lost her greatest defender.”

“Let’s make sure there’s an Earth for him to return to.” Rhodey instead replied, level headed as always. Natasha gratefully let him take the lead, hoping for a spare moment with Bruce. 

\--

“Where did you go?” Natasha asked him. It felt like they were back in the helicarrier, testing each other’s limits, and treading on a ground of needles. 

Bruce only grimaced. “Sakaar, a planet in space. I spent two years as Hulk there.”

“What made you return?”

“To Bruce or to Earth?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “Thor ended up in Sakaar by a series of events I still don’t completely understand. Valhalla, bifrost, it’s a whole story. And then he ended up having to fight me, Hulk, in an area. After I won, we attempted to escape. Loki and Brunhilde helped us to take down Thor’s evil older sister, Hela, goddess of death.”

Natasha was very much caught off guard. What had happened in that time to make Bruce so open? Loki and him were now bros? And who was Brunhilde? Most of all, it still didn’t explain him back on Earth. 

“So Loki, and Brunhilde, an alien I suppose, and Thor took down a goddess and then..?”

“Brunhilde is actually an Asgardian warrior. She had fought for Hela, but was running from her past as well. The three of them began to put back together Asgard, and then Thanos came and Heimdall, you’ve heard of him, shot me back to Earth in the bifrost.”

“So Thor brought you back?” Natasha smiled. “I’m glad you and him aren’t constantly pounding each other.”

Bruce grinned easily. “Yeah. He’s been really good, he’s seen a lot of me that I always hid.”

_You never had to hide from me._

_But what do I deserve when I hide from you? ___

____

__

Before their conversation could continue in the way Natasha wanted it to go, they landed in Wakanda, and were sucked up into a whirlwind, unable to reach each other. 

\--

Day in, day out. Every morning Natasha woke up to the deafening silence of loneliness. The compound, devoid of people, was a place that Natasha could no longer run from. With the remnants of old and new Avengers, Natasha aided in the reconstruction of Earth. 

_I’m so numb, just give me something to feel._

She still visited the Stark’s every weekend. But more often than not, it reminded her family she didn’t have, and truth be told she was jealous. She was literally, in love with a green eyed monster _(but a monster is only a monster from a certain part of view)_ that she couldn’t reach.

Clint was gone. No more than a scent in the wind, she had spent _days_ watching his movements, but when she traced him down, all he had left was destruction. He had left her one message, in Budapest, which was fitting. 

_if you ever need me, i’ll be there. but this battle is one i have to do alone._  
\--your work hubbie--  


\--

But today was different. When she dropped her keys on the counter, someone caught them for her. 

“Hey Nat.”

“Long time no see.”

“Yeah. I’ve been with Thor a lot.”

“How’s Scotland been treating you?”

“It’s cloudy, all the time. I had to issue an executive order to get them to take vitamin D. The supermarkets promptly ran out and we’re banned from the local market.”

“Bruce, your life sounds _almost_ as sad as mine.”

Bruce only laughed, offered her a cup of tea, and then leaned in on his shoulders. 

A moment of silence passed and for once, Natasha didn’t mourn the lost moment. She just slid

onto the kitchen stool and stirred her tea with the small spoons Bruce loved. 

_She had kept those just so he could smile when he came back_

“The truth is, I’m here to apologize.” 

Natasha’s head whipped up and Bruce looked at her with soft, guilty eyes. 

_You never have to apologize. I’ll suffer a million times over for you._

“What for?” Natasha asked lightly, but she knew her facade was useless. She was so emotionally vulnerable as it was, and Bruce had always held the code to decipher her encrypted heart. 

“Where do I start? I left the team, I left you. I know Ultron was a combination of almost impossible occurrences, but I left my best friend to deal with that. And then, because of that, you guys broke up, and then...the snap.”

“None of that can be pinned on a single person.”

“Butterfly effect.”

“If we’re being honest Bruce, the team still would’ve been divided on the matter of the Accords. Regardless on which side you’d be on, Tony would be for them, and Steve against them.”

“Where would you be?”

“Depends on how it would play out.”

Humming, Bruce left the rest of his inquiries unspoken, and turned the conversation more personal. 

“That actually wasn’t even the apology I was going for. I wasn’t completely honest, or at least, I avoided answering a question.”

“Which question is that?”

“You know which one.” Bruce smiled, and then dropped his head in shame. 

“Thor and I had to use the Avengers ship I had taken to go back to Asgard. At that point, I was still Hulk. On the ship, your recording popped up.”

Bruce seemed to struggle with his words, and then spoke without looking at her.

_Stop hiding. I’ll never judge your demons, we both know I’ve got them to_

“You brought me back Nat. Two years as Hulk without a single memory...I shouldn’t have been able to come back. All science supports that. But you, Nat…”

Bruce’s head drifted up and faced Natasha’s eyes. “I came back to myself because as much as I tried, I couldn’t let you go, and I had promises to keep.”

“Natasha Romanoff, if you are still, at all, interested in being more with me, I won’t run. Not this time.”

“Is that a promise?”

“It is.”

**Author's Note:**

> That’s a wrap on Febuwhump 2021! Thank you guys for all the comments and kudos, from both of us ❤️
> 
> [Crazyinfj’s Tumblr! (aka the writer)](http://crazyinfj.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [Eylle9’s Tumblr!](https://tumblr.com/blog/eylle9)


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